Tombstone Tuesday: Learning Melvin Medeiros’ Story

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My Pacheco and de Braga lines intersect with a family from Kilauea, Kauai, Hawaii, who went by de la Cross (or de la Cruz), Medeiros, and Andrew or Andrew Medeiros–take your pick. As our lines crossed a few times, I ended up documenting their descendants as well as mine.

One of the descendants, Melvin Medeiros, was always a mystery to me. Melvin was the son of Seraphim A. Medeiros and Felisa “Alice” Silvan. He was the grandson of Andrew da la Cross and Rosa Perreira, Seraphim’s parents. I had his birth date and then he vanished from records.

Sunday night I was searching the internet to work on my yearly Pacheco de Braga Family Newsletter. I set out to verify people who would be 80 years or old section of the newsletter. I’d be embarrassed to include someone who died several years before. I do my best to find death information if it’s available.

During my search I came across a blog post on the Spanish Pearls blog. The post was about Melvin Medeiros. It included a photo of his tombstone which you can see on FindAGrave.com.

Because of the blog post and the information at FindAGrave, I now know what happened to Melvin. He enlisted in the military in 1943. He was sent to fight in the Pacific during WWII. Melvin was killed in action in 1945 in the Philippines. According to the entry, this was during the battle for Manila.

It’s a curious twist to the story. Melvin’s grandfather was from the Philippines. It seems ironic that his grandfather would leave the Philippines, then died in Hawaii and he himself would end up dying in the Philippines.

Melvin died during the war making it difficult to locate his death information. Because of a blogger and a FindAGrave volunteer, I now know his story. I appreciate being able to add this bit of information to his file.